Erling Ellingsen, Funcom's director of communications, tells MMORPG.com that his company is cooperating with Norwegian authorities who are conducting an investigation into allegations that executives at the MMO developer engaged in insider trading.

Norwegian MMO developer and publisher Funcom is under investigation for insider trading, according to this Eurogamer report. According to the report, staff were sent home today as Norwegian authorities collected documents related to an investigation into insider trading, though specific details about the investigation remain unknown as of this writing. Funcom's stock has also been temporarily frozen on the Oslo stock market.

Sony Online Entertainment will shut down four MMOs in the next few months. The first two games to be shut down will be Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures and Free Realms, which are scheduled to go dark March 31. Wizardry Online and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes will also be shut down, but much later in the year - July 31.

Speaking specifically about Free Realms - which is available on both PS3 and PC, - SOE said that the game had reached its lifecycle:

A documentary about the ill effects of online game addiction in South Korea made its debut this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival. According to the festival's official website (as reported on by GameSpot), the documentary explores South Korea's online gaming culture as it follows the story of a couple whose three-month-old daughter died of malnutrition while they were allegedly playing the massively multiplayer online game, Prius Online.

Sony Online Entertainment will likely change its subscriptions model for its line-up of PC MMOs into a single system where users pay one fee for access to its entire catalog of games. In a recent Reddit thread, SOE head John Smedley said that the company would "likely move forward" with a plan to charge customers a flat monthly fee of $14.99 for access to its entire catalog of games on the PC.

MMO company Perfect World Entertainment is making a major push into the free-to-play market on video game consoles. The company announced that it has completed a company expansion by creating a console division targeting current and next-gen consoles. Planned console products expected include current and future games from Perfect World Entertainment’s suite of developers, the company said.

EA Mythic's Warhammer licensed MMORPG, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was shut down last night after the license held by EA Mythic from Games Workshop expired. Former Warhammer Online producer Josh Drescher talked at length about the game on his personal blog, saying that most of the criticism towards the game was spot on, while some of it was just "uninformed BS."

Backers of Richard Garriott's and Portalarium's online-focused RPG Shroud of the Avatar, will get a taste of the game beginning today with the launch of Shroud of the Avatar Release 1. The early version of the game's client will allow players to log in to their accounts, download the client, create a character and begin to explore the streets of Owl's Head, the game's first town open for business. The release comes nine months after the project was announced by Portalarium in early March.

Players of the long-running (and still popular) Jagex MMO RuneScape have raised $90,838 for charity by donating their in-game currency through a magic well located in the game called the "Well of Goodwill." The money raised through this community initiative will go to such charities as the Willow Foundation, SpecialEffect, Action For Kids, Games Aid, Internet Watch Foundation, HART and the DEC Philippines Typhoon Appeal.

CCP Games is offering a one-day "Black Friday" deal for its space MMO, Eve Online. From now until Midnight PST November 30, customers who sign up for a new membership to the game will pay only 99 cents for a month's worth of time.

In addition, all users can choose one of four specialized exploration frigates: the militaristic Sukuuvestaa Heron, the regal Sarum Magnate, the sturdy Vherokior Probe, or the Inner Zone Shipping Imicus.

We have learned two things this week about Treehouse Avatar Technologies. Inc.: first, they are owned by a publicly traded Canadian company called - Wi-LAN Inc. (TSX:WIN, NASDAQ:WILN) and that the company has settled its lawsuit with Turbine. Apparently rather than fighting the accusations that Turbine violated its software patents the makers of D&D Online and The Lord of the Rings Online have opted to enter into a licensing agreement with the firm.

CCP Games announced today that its PLEX for GOOD initiative will help fund relief efforts for victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. On November 8th 2013, Typhoon Haiyan (Typhoon Yolanda) struck the Philippines, leaving a trail of destruction and loss whose effects continue to be felt in the region. In response to this tragedy, CCP and their community of over a half million players will again host a PLEX for GOOD drive to aid survivors.

Trion Worlds announced that last week's participation in the Extra Life charity marathon and a promotion related to it helped give its MMORPGs RIFT Online and Defiance a record-breaking week last week. The company said that over a quarter of a million new players joined their online games, RIFT and Defiance. Bookended by the relaunch of RIFT as a free-to-play game on Steam and the charity marathon for Extra Life, Trion’s celebration week included promotions, in-game special events, and giveaways across both games to celebrate both new and veteran players.

RuneScape makers Jagex say that the recent introduction of RuneScape Bonds into the long-running MMO has reduced gold farming activities by as much as 81 percent. Bonds were introduced into the game on September 26. A Bond in RuneScape cost $5, £3 or €4.25 each and can only be redeemed in-game. Bonds are redeemable for 14 days of RuneScape membership, eight Squeal of Fortune spins, or 160 RuneCoins. Multiple Bonds can also be redeemed for RuneFest tickets (RuneFest is a fan gathering that will take place at the Tobacco Dock in London on November 2).

Several new reports from research firm Niko Partners reveals that China's gaming population is mostly made up of PC gamers and mobile players. According to data from two reports, the "Chinese Gamers Report 2013," and the "Quarterly Home Gamer Survey and Monthly I-café Games Usage Data," China has 208 million PC gamers and 288 million mobile game players this year.

Jagex announced today that one million users have joined its retro MMO RuneScape Old School since it launched in January of this year. As the name would imply RuneScape Old School lets players jump in the popular online game world that put Jagex on the map.

Researchers at Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab is researching how sexualized depictions of women in video games can make women feel like they are objects, and that it may alter their perception on myths related to rape.

"We often talk about video game violence and how it affects people who play violent video games," says Jeremy Bailenson, the director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford. “I think it’s equally important to think about sexualization.”

In what can only be described as ironic, Activision Blizzard has filed a lawsuit against Worlds, Inc. for patent infringement. In its lawsuit, the World of Warcraft maker says that Worlds, Inc. has violated two of its patents that relate to navigating a 3D space and the interaction of objects with a 3D space. The irony is that Worlds, Inc. sued NCSoft - a lawsuit the two companies settled in April of 2010 - related to scalable chat systems and another one related to interacting in a virtual space.

EA's Mythic Games announced via the game's official site that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will be shutting down on December 18. The MMO launched by Mythic and Electronic Arts in North and South Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand on September 18, 2008. While it had a rough launch, the game managed to interest a small and faithful following over the last five years.

Trion Worlds' MMORPG Rift Online continues to have setbacks in Asian countries, with another operator of the game announcing that it will shut down the game. Today Shanda Games revealed that it will shut down the Rift Online service it operates in China. The company was pretty vague about why it was shutting down the game, only stating that it had "several reasons" for doing so.

The Korean version of the game was shut down in April of this year and Trion Worlds recently closed studios in San Diego and Europe.

A new Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign has an interesting pitch: help fund an MMO universe built with a high level of input from players. Not only will players have a say in how the fantasy MMO will be built, the creators of the game claim that they are already helping to build out some of the content. The game is called Neo's Land, and it is being developed by Calgary-based game studio NeoJac Entertainment.

Admitting that the launch of its newest Final Fantasy MMO was less than stable, Square Enix announced that it will compensate subscribers of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn with an extra seven days of game time.

The publisher admitted that it has been unable to deliver a reliable and stable service to customers since the game launched on PC and PS3 last week. The company chalked up the game's technical difficulties to high user demand. This led to a temporary halt in digital sales as it attempted to expand server capacity.

Sony Online Entertainment announced that it has laid off an undisclosed number of employees at its San Diego, Calif. and Austin, TX. studios as part of a new initiative to reduce costs, align its resources, and streamline its workforce company-wide.

"As part of a strategic decision to reduce costs and streamline its workforce, SOE announced today that it will eliminate positions in both its San Diego and Austin studios," the company said in a statement.

MCV is reporting that MMO publisher Trion Worlds will close its European office located in Guildford, UK by week's end. The European headquarters for the company will lay off ten employees and close the office this week, according to the report. Staff affected by the closure include Trion Europe boss John Burns, communications boss Jon Goddard commercial director Jeff Pabst, senior brand manager Dominic Wai and PR manager Gary Burns.

In last week's poll we asked you "Should MMOs limit the amount of time gamers can play them to stem pathological addiction?" Around 431 votes were cast with the lion's share going towards personal responsibility on the part of gamers.

One percent of voters (5 votes) said that limits on MMOs should be mandated by the government. Seven percent (30 votes) that developers should voluntarily added controls that limit gameplay. But a whopping 92 percent (396 votes) said that gamers should be responsible for their own actions.

Researchers in the United Kingdom are warning MMO developers that they need to consider limiting the amount of time the average player spends per session to combat "pathological addiction," and avoid inevitable government intervention. Researchers at Cardiff, Derby and Nottingham Trent universities said some gamers play up to "90 hours a session," and that if game companies did not create in-game limits for players, governments might have no choice but to follow Asia's model for limiting play time.

As part of its announcement this morning that it would break the iron grip of Vivendi's controlling interest, Activision Blizzard revealed that World of Warcraft subscriber numbers have fallen to 2007 levels. The number of paying World of Warcraft monthly subscribers has dropped to 7.7 million, according to Activision Blizzard. That's close to what the game had in 2007 before The Burning Crusade helped it break into the 8 million subscriber mark.

When we first started writing about law firm Lerner, David, Littenberg, Krumholz & Mentlik sending letters on behalf of Treehouse Avatar Technologies to independent game development studios concerning an 858 patent (U.S Patent 8,180,858), we reached out to the signatory on those letters - Stephen F. Roth - to give him an opportunity to tells his client's side of the story.

Shout box

Wymorence: For me it just boils down to the fact that, even at a giant company, when a game comes out annually it just gives it a vibe of being rushed out the door. And god knows Unity sucked some major lemur with all its bugs...03/31/2015 - 4:22pm

PHX Corp: I launched my spotify account today, and I kinda went a little overboard with adding music03/31/2015 - 3:59pm

Sora-Chan: Con't. Games like AC are a pain to someone like me who likes to play games in order. So when a game gets too many releases too quickly, it puts me off. Only exceptions are games that have no interconnected underlying stories like the FF games.03/31/2015 - 2:53pm

Sora-Chan: Wikipedia has rarely let me down on matters like this. But yeah... AC needs a break.. like two.. or three... or eight years.03/31/2015 - 2:51pm

Conster: There's 9 already?! I think I played 1, 2, and the ones inbetween 2 and 3.03/31/2015 - 2:23pm

Sora-Chan: Con't There are now Nine... of just the main entries into the series. There are 13 more in the "other games" department.03/31/2015 - 2:15pm

Sora-Chan: I tried to get into AC. Was having a decent time with the first one, at which point they had already released three titles. Then a fourth came out... then a fifth... the wall kept growing before I could finish the first.03/31/2015 - 2:14pm

Daniel Lewis: I think ubisoft should give AC a break before it's milked to death,and i'm a big fan of the games03/31/2015 - 1:15pm

Daniel Lewis: The only thing said i disagree with is the final quote on Men's experiences are seen to be universal but women are gendered,though doesn't anita say that games with male protagonists are male power fantasies,so in turn both are gendered03/31/2015 - 1:08pm

Daniel Lewis: i found the video to be much better than any of the TvW series and it's about time the positive women are put in the spotlight03/31/2015 - 1:06pm

Daniel Lewis: So feministfrequency released a positive female character video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXmj2yJNUmQ03/31/2015 - 1:05pm

Daniel Lewis: I think the guy who made the direct leak said it was an april fools joke when a real one was announced03/31/2015 - 12:43pm

MaskedPixelante: No way Nintendo would let information like that get out. Remember, they shut down a memoir about the localization of Earthbound by enforcing a 20 year old NDA on the author.03/31/2015 - 12:42pm

james_fudge: Conster: the larger issue is that Ind. does not protect LGBTQ+ people under state law03/31/2015 - 12:11pm

PHX Corp: @MP I think it is confirmed(not an April Fools joke) http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/31/nintendo-direct-confirmed-for-wednesday-april-1st/03/31/2015 - 12:00pm

Conster: Apparently Pence intends to amend SB101 so denying service isn't allowed - without explicitly protecting LGBT+ and while still allowing the many other things you can get away with now if it's motivated by your religious beliefs.03/31/2015 - 11:53am

MaskedPixelante: http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/30/rumour-nintendo-direct-on-april-1st/ A supposed full leak of tomorrow's Nintendo Direct, so you can all laugh and laugh about how wrong it is.03/31/2015 - 11:35am